Archive for September, 2009

I’ve been creating art as long as I can remember, but I really hit my stride in high school. The work I created between 1997 and 1999 was unbelievable. During my senior year of high school, I was asked to be part of the honors art program. It was, for lack of a better term, an honor. By my senior year, most of my required classes were already taken, so I was able to fill up the majority of my schedule with art classes. I basically spent every day in the art room pumping out paintings, drawings, collages and anything else I could possibly create.

As I mentioned in my previous note, in high school, I developed the silhouette/shadow style of portraits that I enjoy painting so much. The first experiment with this style was a portrait of Thom Yorke of Radiohead, and the second was a portrait of Ed O’Brien of Radiohead. (See a theme, here?) For the portrait of Ed, I decided to use a solid background rather than the abstract expressionist-style background I normally use. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and it went into the ever-growing stack of paintings I did. This was in 1998.

In 1999, one of my art teachers told me about an art show put on by the Walker Art Center‘s Teen Arts Council called “Hot Art Injection.” It was open to any teens in the Twin Cities area, so I submitted slides of a bunch of my artwork in hopes of getting in. I received a letter weeks later saying that they wanted “Ed O’Brien In Blue” in the exhibit. I was really excited about it. It was held at the Soap Factory, and there were a lot of excellent works in the exhibit.

During my senior year, I was in nine art exhibits (I think it was nine — it was a lot, I know that much), but the Hot Art Injection exhibit was the best one by far.

(Check out how dorky I am in that photo! I’m wearing my awesome Marilyn Manson shirt, too. My eclectic music tastes have not changed in ten years.)

I painted this portrait of James Dean Bradfield of the band Manic Street Preachers back in 2000. It’s done in a style of painting I developed back in 1998, and it’s a style I love using for portraits. I’ve always been happy with the way it turned out, and it’s been one of my favourites done in that style.

In summer of 2006, I received an e-mail from someone at Rolling Stone magazine based in Germany. James Dean Bradfield’s solo album, The Great Western, was their main featured review in an upcoming issue, and they wanted permission to use my painting of him. At first I thought it was a hoax, because I just assume anything awesome is a hoax at first (I mean, “too good to be true” and all). But, after I did some research and got reassurance from them that it wasn’t a hoax, I gave them permission to use the painting in their issue. They paid me pretty well, I thought — especially since the work was already done and they didn’t want to buy the rights to the painting or anything. And, the part that excited me is that I’ve always wanted to have my portraits featured in Rolling Stone or Spin in the reviews section, and I finally got to do it. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. Yes, it was in Germany, but at least it was in a magazine, and that’s all that mattered to me.

They mailed a copy of the magazine to me when it was printed, and I can’t explain how surreal it was to see that painting in the pages of Rolling Stone.

I thought it might be interesting to discuss some of the works I’ve done. You know, just to get a back story about certain pieces.

Aleksandr Rodchenko’s poster design for “Kino Glaz” and the cover of issue 2 of the Franz Ferdinand Fan Club Magazine.

Franz Ferdinand Fan Club Magazine: Issue 2

Anyone who is familiar with the band Franz Ferdinand and their album and single artwork from the first two albums knows that each design pays homage to constructivist, suprematist and other minimalist art movements and works. The first few issues of the fan club magazine and accompanying material continued in this style. It was second nature to me, as I’m highly influenced by those same art movements and artists. For issue 2, I found a movie poster design for “Kino Glaz,” designed by constructivist artist and photographer, Aleksandr Rodchenko. I really loved the layout and balance of elements in the design, and decided to use that as my inspiration for the cover. Around the same time, Franz Ferdinand shot the video for their single, “Walk Away,” which was shot like an old film. I used a still of vocalist/guitarist Alex Kapranos’ eye and a still of the gal in the video for the photographic elements in my design. The colours are based on the same colours used in the band’s second album, “You Could Have It So Much Better.”

It all ties in together, and issue 2’s design is still one of my favourites.